


In which Loki is having none of this bullshit (Or, the one where Loki plays matchmaker)

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Loki is the best friend a genius can have, M/M, Steve is a twelve year old girl, Tony is oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-02 06:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically? Loki notices Steve noticing Tony, and decides to do something about it, discovers Tony is oblivious to a fault, and takes Drastic Measures. Steve is not amused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Steve pines so hard Loki expects to see squirrels.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so, here's the thing: I am very, very new at this, and even newer at Super Husbands. So, if you want to do me a favor, read this, tear it to pieces, and leave me a comment on stuff you liked and stuff you hated, what I could do better, who's far to OOC, that sort of thing. Thank you, and I <3 you all.

The thing was, was that you could only lock Loki and Tony up in the same (albeit very, very large) house before they either killed each other or become best friends. And since Thor would have been… upset had Loki been assassinated, and SHIELD would have been put off at the sudden loss of funding, mutual homicide was out. Which meant that the unlikely duo became BFFF’s.

(“And you know what the extra ‘F’ is for,” Tony had said with a wink. Loki hadn’t, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.)

Honestly, though, they had more or less needed each other. Loki was used to being surrounded by bold, courageous, _moronic_ Asgardians. Tony was used to being the platinum spoon baby with daddy issues, an IQ that redefined “genius", and no verbal filter whatsoever. They had a physical need to be with someone, anyone, that could even try to understand them, and that had ended up as the reason they had ended up drunk off their asses swapping stories on why dads suck and mothers are the best inventions ever.

Naturally, the second other people noticed their friendship all hell broke loose. Yes, they are friends. No, they don’t want to conquer the world. No, they’re not sleeping together. 

(One day, Loki would understand why Midgardians would rather focus on a potential celebrity couple than a possible apocalypse. He wasn’t quite sure this could happen at a point when he was sober, though.)

Anyways. Loki supposed he should be grateful for the sudden kinship with a man he threw out of a window (twice). Being isolated in Asgard was bad. Here, it was worse. And Tony blew all of it to hell. Together, they planned world domination and stole the last slices of pizza and covered for each other when a prank went awry. They ended up practically glued to each other, two polka-dot sheep in a black herd, misfits among misfits. And this was how Loki ended up being the one to drag Tony, half-asleep and drunk off his ass, up to his room.

It wasn’t unusual in and of itself. While Tony was not yet at the point of needing either intervention or electroshock therapy to curb his drinking, alcohol was as common in his work place as anything else. Tony had been rambling on about something Loki didn’t even pretend to understand when halfway through something about an internal heating… something, they had passed Steve in the hallway. Steve had looked at Tony, opened his mouth to say something, looked at Loki, closed his mouth, and then walked down the hallway, glancing back over his shoulder once at the lump that was Tony, half slumped against Loki, and then kept going. It was nothing special. In fact, it was downright mundane. But that was the first moment Loki started _noticing_ thing instead of just seeing them. Things like the way Steve always saved Tony at least one of the glazed doughnuts Tony liked so much, fending off assassins and gods alike, things like the way Steve’s smiles were always just a tad bit wider for Tony, the way Steve hated reality shows with a passion and would refuse to be in the same room as a TV with one playing- except if Tony happened to be in the room as well.

Looking back, Loki supposed the way Steve would rather travel by way of a shitty grip on the mechanical suit piloted by Tony fucking Stark than a safer, more reliable mode of transport without the snark that really should have given it away.

So basically, Loki had come across some very desirous knowledge that he had no idea what to do with, because it’s one thing to know that Captain America, face of a nation and keeper of the Dream, was pining, pining like a tree, pining like a _whole damn forest_ , for Tony Stark, the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist with daddy issues a mile wide and just as much armor inside as out. But knowing what to do with that information? That was a whole new problem.

It was times like this Loki had regrets about renouncing villainy, because knowing you could use the Iron Avenger as bait for Captain America was worth its weight in solid vibranium in the villain world. But now, he supposed, it was rather bad form to use your only friend as live bait, even if said friend would probably find the whole situation hilarious. So he did what he thought wonderful, perfect Thor who knew how to have friends would do in a situation like this.

“He likes you, you know,” Loki drawled, watching Steve walk up the stairs from Tony’s lab.

“Steve? Of course he likes me. I’m _very_ likable,” Tony replied, not even looking up from the schematics of yet another suit. “Besides, Steve likes everyone. Well, everyone who doesn’t try to kill him. Hell, even some of the people that do. Even _Fury_ , and who actually likes _Fury __?”_

“You like Fury.”

“No, I like trying to drive Fury insane.” Tony lifted his head. “What brought this about?”

“Because Steve likes you.” Tony opened his mouth to talk. Loki cut him off. “No, I mean he _likes_ you. He’s enamored. He wants a big, gay, all-American wedding with you and to adopt millions of orphans, and puppies, and orphan puppies, and to write “Steven Rogers-Stark” on his tax returns.”

Tony gaped a bit. Loki could practically _feel_ his massive brain working. This was it. This was when he officially became Loki Laufeyson, god of mischief and trickery, and the man who finally got Captain America laid.

Then Tony snorted. “Funny, Loki. Real funny. Next you’ll be telling me Natasha wants to elope to West Virginia.”

Loki thought that there was something to be said about the way people could tell when he was lying a mile away, but the one time he told the truth no one believed him.

And while Tony Stark, who could see everything but the completely obvious, went back to his designs, Loki began to plot in earnest.


	2. Oh God, watch out for the Tony feels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS. YOU GUYS. PEOPLE LEFT KUDOS. AND BOOKMARKED THIS. MY LAST STORY HAD ALL OF 1 COMMENT. I HAVE BEEN WRITING FOR THE WRONG FANDOM.
> 
> *cough*
> 
> Anyways.

If it had just been that Tony didn’t like Steve _back_ , Loki wouldn’t have a problem. Steve was a brave, handsome man. He would have had no problem finding a- what had Tony called it? Ah, yes. A “rebound fuck”. But no. Tony reciprocated, Tony reciprocated _very much_ , and for Loki it was less like watching a car crash so much as watching two cars very nearly crash because one driver was bouncing around in his seat and the other was set on going _straight fucking forward_ , but at the last moment swerve to avoid each other and promptly go through the guard rails into a massive chasm for their troubles. Loki had never been one to desire copious amounts of alcohol, but this was going to change that. Loki could _feel_ it.

The thing about Tony was that he all the maturity of a five-year-old on a sugar high. Most people discovered that within five minutes of meeting him, or by watching any interview with him, whatever. But they didn’t see past that, into the heart of it, of _him_. Tony was smart. Tony had _always been_ smart, the sort of built-a-switchboard-at-the-age-of-four intelligence that most parents _prayed_ for. Howard Stark hadn’t prayed, but he had gotten it anyways, and then he hadn’t known what to do with it. He couldn’t figure out how to handle something he couldn’t program to stop crying or just go the fuck to sleep already. And that meant that the one person in the whole of the world that Tony Stark could possibly have looked up to, to emulate, was the person he drank himself stupid to escape the ghost of. Sans Howard, Tony had no role model to copy like a good boy should. Oh, there was Maria, but Maria, for all her beauty and courage, could only be a mother, and no matter how good their mothers were, boys like Tony always need _more_. What Tony had needed could only come from the one man who had no idea how to give it. And so, Tony had grown up wild with no one to look up to, to respect, no one he could strive to be like. And that had stunted Tony in ways most people couldn't understand.

Oh, Loki knew Howard had loved Tony plenty, had built him an empire and made him a prince. Loki knew about The Recording (had seen it once, too, when a drunken Tony had made him watch it with him, denying that he was crying but breathing to harshly to really hide it). He knew that what it meant to Tony- to know, finally, that he had made the war hero who shaped the modern world proud- was immeasurably precious. And he also knew how much more it had made Tony hate his father for sending him spiraling into a pretty, cold life and to only tell him he was loved decades after his death, after it could possibly change anything, and that none of it, _none of it_ , not the hatred or the alcohol or the psychological issues he dealt with, had ever made Tony stop loving his father or stop wanting to make a ghost proud. And Loki? Loki knew what that was like far too much to allow his best (only?) friend to experience it.

But Steve had apparently convinced himself at some point that the correct response to discovering less-than-platonic feelings for a teammate was to curl his emotions into a small ball and bury them, never to be seen again. He had weathered Loki’s admittedly rather meager first attempt with the sort of stubbornness rarely seen in a human, or anything not made _completely out of stone_. Honestly, Loki had to be just a bit impressed. Had he been trapped in a closet for two hours with the object of his affections and two communicators that mysteriously broke down, _something_ less than chaste would have happened. Apparently, Steve’s good old fashioned values were holding up better than the Great Wall.

When Loki had been caught, a man in black had read him what he had been convicted of and the charges leveled against him? Had been _every fucking charge in the book_. It had been decided that the proper atonement for crimes against humanity was to _assist_ humanity in every possible capacity. And now? Now there was actually a human Loki _wanted_ to assist (well, one human and a half, seeing as he didn’t really care about Steve either way but was helping him by default) and what happened? Nothing. And that was unacceptable. Loki was getting desperate, and if there was one thing Loki hated to feel, it was desperation. A desperate Loki was a very, very bad thing to have on one’s hands. 

This was how Loki ended up going to someone he never though he would have to ask for help. Someone wily. Someone dangerous. Someone who had no love for him. And yet, the one person he trusted to have intel on what to do in these situations. For Tony, he would consult… _her_.

When explained the situation, Darcy laughed so hard she dropped her phone.

“So what you’re saying here,” she said, and wait, was she _smirking_? Yes, yes she was. Loki frowned a bit, “is that your _hypothetical_ friend _hypothetically_ is crushing on a guy who hypothetically likes him back, but neither are willing to make a move.”

Loki nodded.

“Well, if I had to tell your _friend_ ,” there was that smirk again, and really, was that necessary? Loki didn’t think so, “what to do, I’d say… make him jealous. That way this friend of yours can tell whether this guy’s really into him or he just read the signals wrong-”

“The signals were _not_ read wrong,” Loki cut in.

Darcy raised an eyebrow.

“-and if he’s as positively _lovesick_ as you make him out to be, he’ll do something.”

Loki nodded. “Your advice has been quite insightful. Thank you. If you’ll excuse me, I must go strategize.”

On the way back to his room, Loki pondered. How did one make Steven Rogers jealous enough to approach Tony Stark if he hadn’t already reacted to the flavor-of-the-week girls Tony wooed revolving-door style? Perhaps, he mused, if threatened with Tony entering a _serious_ relationship, one with meanings beyond sex, he could be spurred into action?

Then Loki had an idea. No, then Loki had The Idea, the one that was so simple but so very clever he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it sooner.

Smiling to himself in the way that usually spelled out “trouble” and “disaster” and “run, run for your _life_ ” in sharp white teeth, Loki picked up the pace to his room. He really should get plenty of sleep tonight. After all, he had a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist to begin wooing in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I change the rating to "T" for the swearing? Also, the offer to shred this still stands. Critique away!  
> *Slight edit-type-thing: By "shred" I mean as a "tear it to pieces as a form of critique" sort of thing from the first chapter. Not gonna delete this. Sorry about the confusion!


	3. Operation: Wingman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heeeey, guys. So, I'm sorry that this took awhile, I love you all... alright, good times. Go read, go read.

If there was one thing Loki recognized the importance of, it was subtlety. After living with Asgardians for most of his life, he had learned that it wasn’t always necessary to break down a door, sometimes a smile and a “please” could work just as well. And that was why when Loki began Operation: Wingman, he started it simply. He made breakfast. 

When he arrived at the workshop with two cups of the Columbian blend and a stack of pancakes, Tony had looked up, mumbled something about the Holy Grail, and been halfway through a stack before Loki took his first sip of coffee. 

”Tony, darling,” he drawled, reclining against what appeared to be a scrap pile with red and blue light blinking at seemingly random intervals, “I dearly hope you know that if you choke, your life will depend on how quickly that CEO of yours can get down here, because I most certainly am not giving you the Heimlich maneuver.”

Tony smiled around a mouthful of dough. “Lies, blatant lies and fallacies of the lowest caliber. You love me, speaking of which,” he foisted one pancake onto his fork and lifted it for inspection, “are these pancakes _heart-shaped_?”

Loki frowned a bit, biting his lip. If there was one thing he knew how to feign convincingly, it was innocence. “But the recipe was quite specific as the what shape I should make them in. Is it insulting? I could make more…”

Tony swallowed. “No, nonononono. It’s fine, you know what, it’s more than fine, it’s great. I love me some heart-shaped pancakes, it’s funny, see? Because, heart? Love? Oh, god, I’ve been awake too long, is there more coffee?”

Loki calmly handed the hyperactive genius his cup.

“Dude, I love you, how do you put up with me? Oh, yeah, I guess growing up with Thor'n'Company probably made you immune. Just out of curiosity, where did you get the recipe for these panakes?”

Loki straightened his spine and schooled his expression of aloofness, the perfect picture of a perfect prince. “I believe it was in one of the magazine Ms. Potts uses to make the mansion seem more “lived-in” rather than like an over-decorated apartment building. Personally, I find that between the damage Mr. Banner does to his surroundings and the constant threat of your sniper jumping on you from the rafter, the effect was more than achieved long before Ms. Potts felt the need to add a “feminine touch.”

Tony looked thoroughly amused. “Valentine pancakes in July. Now that’s quality service.”

Loki bit back on what would surely have been a truly scathingly witty retort as Steve clomped down the stairs. Loki hid his smile. The good captain was nothing if not punctual.

Steve punched in his passcode, walked inside, and stopped short, his adorable confused boy-scout expression traveling back and forth between Loki and Tony.

”Mmph! Steve! Steeve! Look, Loki made me Valentines pancakes because he _lurves_ me, right, Loki?”

Loki gave a wry smile and brushed a few wayward strands of hair back from Tony’s forehead. “That’s right, Tony. Now finish eating your pancakes.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Steve, no longer confused but still frowning.

And so it began.

It wasn’t particularly difficult, to be honest. Tony was more than a little attention starved and more or less absorbed the little touches and smiles from Loki, where Steve was an artist and had all the passion to go with it. It wasn’t uncommon to see him all but brooding in the corner of the kitchen, Tony typing away at the table and Loki seated across from him teasing him for his workaholic tendencies, frowning like he sort of wanted to be absolutely anywhere but _there_ but making no move whatsoever to leave. By the end of the first week, Steve had a somewhat perpetual frown. By the end of the month, there were dark circles under his eyes.

(It had been about two weeks in, though, when he had heard Darcy and Steve talking. He hadn’t actually meant to eavesdrop, but he had been thirsty, and really, if their discussion had really been so damn secret they shouldn’t have had it in the ever so wonderfully public kitchen. He had been about to round the corner when he heard voices, pressing back into the shadows out of habit.

“…close to you?” And yup, that was Steve. The question was who was he talking-

“Loki and Tony? Close? I haven’t noticed anything.” Ah. Darcy. Loki was fairly certain that she did not, in fact, live in the mansion. This didn’t seem to stop her from spending all free time there, though.

”You know that I can tell you’re lying, right?” Silence. “And that I take that as a _personal offence_ , never mind that lying to an Avenger is a federal offence?” Loki was pretty sure it wasn’t, but he had to respect the Captain for trying.

“Alright, alright, but if Loki hears you got this from me, you are dead to me.” Loki tensed. She wouldn’t destroy his entire plan, would she? He was pretty sure he could get to her befo- “SoLokikindasortamaybeaskedmeforadviceonhowtogetTonytogooutwithhim,” she blurted.

Wait. What?

”I mean, he didn’t actually _take_ my advice, but the whole “more flies with honey” thing seems to be working for him.”

”Wait, Darcy, start at the beginning.”

”Beginning? Okay, um, like two weeks ago Loki asked me what to do about his _friend_ who really liked this guy who really liked him back and I told him to make him jealous, which he isn’t doing _at all_ but it seems to be going fine for him anyways, so whatever and- Steve are you okay?”

“Yes, fine, thank you, Ms. Lewis.” Loki slipped back up the hall before he was discovered.

Well. That had been… enlightening. He wasn’t sure whether Darcy was covering for him or genuinely though he was seriously in love with Tony. Either way she had aided him in his goals. He would have to remember to be nicer to her in future times.)

So, yes, it wasn’t particularly difficult in the least, except for the small fact that _it wasn’t working_.

Loki was… put off. It wasn’t as though he had never had a plan fall through before; he had a couple that had been unraveled by Thor, and that was just about the most embarrassing thing ever, period (seriously, this was the guy who for a brief time had thought “fortuitous” was a kind of dinosaur). But this plan? Should have been foolproof. Not the kind of foolproof where the security cameras all conveniently fail at the same time and the button on the doomsday machine marked “off” _actually turns thing off_ , either, but actually, truly foolproof. Steve wanted Tony, Tony wanted Steve, Loki gave a little push to get things going, and then there was a big, gay, all-American wedding with Ms. Potts crying and Clint shooting at protestors, right? Wrong. Because, as it would seem, Captain America was _completely allergic to his own happiness_. Loki would pat Tony on the head and get a glare, sling an arm around Tony’s shoulder and hear the faint sound of teeth grinding, give Tony a peck on cheek and step around the glass of what used to be a cup that Steve was still apologizing for breaking, but not once had he met any actual resistance. Maybe he had read this wrong. Maybe Steve didn’t carry quite as bright a torch for Tony as he’d believed. Maybe it was time to give in.

Of course, there was always the time at the pool when Loki had asked Tony to apply the sunblock to his back (“I really am sorry to be a bother, but I burn quite easily.” “No, no, I believe you, any whiter and the Tea Party would be trying to endorse you.” “Admit it, you really just want to touch me, don’t you?” “Any excuse to get my hands on you, Loki.”) and Steve had _walked into the pool_ , fully clothed and giving a manly yelp upon realizing he was no longer on dry land. Loki thought maybe he had read it right, after all.

The thing was, though, knowing he was right meant nothing when Steve insisting on showing a stubbornness that would have been truly impressive in any other situation. Loki was baffled, and he hated that. He was always the one with the clever plan and clever plans meant nothing unless they actually worked. It was better, he decided, to spend time fixing a problem instead of wondering why you had it. He spent the first day rechecking once more to make absolutely sure that yes, he had been right. The next two days were spent trying and failing to discover anything that Tony could have done to anger Steve. On the fourth day, there was a massive Skrull invasion followed by an epiphany.


	4. Loki doesn't kick any ass, but he receives a revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, sorry, sorry! I actually did mean to post this by Sunday, but had an extra-busy weekend (read: FUCKING PASSOVER). Anyways, I can't write battle scenes, and I seriously hope no one needs me to give them CPR in the near future, and I'm generally sorry about his whole chapter. Here's to hoping the next one's better.

One could probably argue that Loki had some basic similarities with the Skrull race, namely, that he was a shapeshifter from another planet hell-bent on destroying the Earth due to his belief that his race was superior to humanity. One would have to be quite careful to not mention this theory in the trickster’s presence, however, unless one was feeling either very adventurous or very bored with living. Loki was quite sure, as he watched his one true friend on the planet spiral down to meet the twisted mess of metal and cinderblock on the cracked asphalt, he had never hated any race but the Jotun as much as he hated the Skrull. If Thor didn’t have a tight grip on his arm, he was sure he would have joined the rest of the Avengers in blasting the things back to the Andromeda Galaxy. As it were, the good Captain appeared to be attempting to wipe out the entire race single handedly while trying to reach his fallen comrade.

“Release me, brother,” he snarled. Thor only shook his head.

“Why? So that you may throw yourself to your destruction? No, I will not.”

The expression on Loki’s face could probably be technically called a smile, but a smile the way a shark smiles at smelling blood. “Oh, brother mine, is your opinion of me so weak to think that I could be killed by these pathetic creatures?” Thor’s grip only tightened. Loki sighed inwardly. He knew his brother well enough to see that he would end up pinned beneath Mjolnir again before he joined this battle. He schooled his expression into a softer, more pleading one. “Then let me go to him,” he said softly and saw the mighty god of thunder melt to what Tony called “Loki’s puppy dog eyes of destruction”. The grip on his bicep loosened.

Loki got to his friend long before anyone else. He dragged him- because Tony Fucking Stark could make armor that flew, armor that swam, armor that could go into deep space, _but not armor that made it convenient for certain gods to drag certain friends away from certain doom_ \- into what was probably an underground parking lot and entered his armor override code. As the face plate snapped back, Loki realized he was holding his breath. He forced the air out of his lungs and began to remove the rest of his friend’s helmet. His mind raced. For all that Loki was, a god, a trickster, a tyrant, an ally, he had never been a doctor. He vaguely remembered something from one of Odin’s war-tale circle jerk banquets that you could check for breathing by holding a mirror to someone’s mouth and check for fogging. His eyes scanned the debris-covered floor, and… there. He scooped up a piece of reflective glass that looked like it had once belonged to a tail light. The glass trembled in his hands as he held it over Tony’s still lips.

Nothing.

Loki began to panic in earnest.

He went to work stripping down the chest plate, the gauntlets, anything he could pry from the far -too-still figure, searching for and finally finding a (very, very weak) pulse. He willed himself to remember those mandatory S.H.I.E.L.D. lessons, and goddammit he was a _god_. He was all-powerful and all-knowing and old as _balls, and he was going to save his fucking BFFF even if he still didn’t know what that fucking stood for._

In the back of his distress-hazed mind, he thought to himself it was a bit funny how similar CPR and waltzing were. 1-2-3, 1-2-3…

It took him a moment to realize he was not alone. He looked up to see Steve. Steve, who was frozen on the spot, looking like the sky was falling. For a moment , Loki saw the scene through the Captain’s eyes. Tony, unmoving and still not breathing (and why was he still not fucking breathing?)with Loki kneeling over, hands on his chest. The moment shattered, and with it, any pretense of calm Loki still clung to. He was angry, _so fucking angry_ , at the Skrulls (this planet, with its flawed, fragile humans, was not theirs to destroy), at himself (what kind of a god couldn’t stop this from happening?), but mostly? At the moment, he was angry at Steven Rogers who couldn’t get his shit together long enough to be Captain America long enough to _call an fucking ambulance for his ~~dyi~~ injured friend_.

“Move!” He shouted. “Move dammit, he needs _help_!”

That started the Avenger into action. As Loki turned back to his friend, he could hear things like, “Iron Man is down, I repeat, the Iron Man…” and “critical” and then he just stopped listening, because this was Tony Stark, and if captivity and alcoholism and Dr. Doom and a psychotic traitor of a father figure, never mind _his actual father_ , couldn’t kill him, neither could a cast of reject Vulcan concepts. 1-2-3, 1-2-3…

Was he…? Oh, gods, yes, that was a breath. Loki let out a relieved sigh and went to work patching his friend up, checking to make sure he was still breathing, until the ambulance (impressively quickly, for Midgardians) arrived.

Apparently, Loki’s recent Heel Face Turn wasn’t enough to warrant a group (flock? gaggle?) of highly trained government agents to allow a convicted war criminal from another planet in the same vehicle as an incapacitated superhero. He was drawing in a breath to loudly argue the point that he could always _persuade_ them to let him in, but he saw Steve’s face. The blond was half pretending to pay attention to the agent talking at him, nodding periodically while biting his lip and looking at Tony like all the colors and kittens and butterflies in the world had suddenly been sucked into the Jaws of Infinity, never to return. He let out the breath in a sigh.

“Soldier!” One did not simply become a god without learning the art of sounding imperious and commanding. Steve’s head snapped in his direction. Loki nodded his head at Tony, laying in what was passing for an ambulance but really looked more suited to being a getaway car. “Go with him.” Steve opened his mouth, then closed it, gave a nod, and leapt into the back of the van with Tony a few moments before they took off, leaving Loki in a cloud of dust and what he decided would be best termed as a _frenzy_ of agents.

Later, while Fury was giving a stale-sounding speech of commendation to Hawkeye and Thor for their efforts at nearly single-handedly causing the Skrulls’ retreat (with thanks, of course, to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men for their much appreciated aid) and skillfully redirecting the issue of the destruction of city land, Loki paced the waiting room of the hospital, wondering if he could just blame this all on Rogers. No, he decided, that would be petty and- well, no, wait, yet he bloody well could. Loki had a theory, see, that Tony was just enough of an under-appreciated attention whore- not that it was his fault (and not that Loki couldn’t see where he was coming from), of course, but still- to jump in front of whatever was most likely to kill him to get the attention of the team leader. So, really, if Steve would just admit that he wanted Tony to be the beautiful, plucky heroine to his suave alpha-male figure and jump on the back of his white steed so they could ride off together into the vivid, Harlequin-novella sunset, this whole mess could be avoided completely. 

Speaking of which, why _hadn't_ Steve made a move yet? Loki just didn’t _understand_. He had seen the way Steve looked at Tony, the understanding, the affection, the _love_ \- 

Wait. Love? 

Oh.

_Oh._

This changed… well, everything, really. Gods, he was an idiot. Because he had been acting on one very simple assumption: that Steve fancied Tony. That, if he just ruffled a few of Steve’s feather, he would come around and whisk Tony off to, oh, Vegas, or somewhere similarly situationally appropriate. But, as any sort of mathematician knows, if you replace one variable, the whole equation has to be re-worked. And if you replaced “fancied” with “loved”…

Oh, Loki could just kick himself.

Of course, of course, _of course_ Steve wasn’t interfering, he was _being noble_. He was setting Tony free to make him happy or some other disgustingly tragic-romantic-type idea that belonged in a Victorian Age opera. Oh, of all the worlds he could have invaded, he just had to have chosen Earth.

Loki collapsed into an uncomfortable plastic chair and stared at the clock. He needed to adjust his strategy, and he knew just what he had to do.

Oh, fuck it all, this would be painful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I warned you.


	5. The Laws of Narration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So... this is really late. Sorry about that... I wish I could tell you that it's because this chapter's just so super good that it took forever, but no. I'm just really, really lazy. Plus, Junior year. Why do we have that. No go. Read. Tell me I'm a pretty, pretty princess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...don't kill me... (hides)

What Loki was doing wasn’t quite the same as looking into a mirror and reciting one’s strengths in an attempt to assure oneself that they are, in fact, a worthwhile, strong person, but it was certainly close kin. After all, he was the greatest sorcerer in Asgard and the former king. There was no shame in turning to…alternate sources of help from time to time. The leader of America had an entire army of advisors. Tony Stark occasionally employed the use of Google. And Loki Silvertongue now and again did… this.

When the Bifrost had fallen, travel to and from Asgard had taken copious amounts of power, the sort most didn’t have access to, prompting most Asgardians to vacation locally. Loki, however, was the son of a king (albeit not the king he had grown up thinking was his father), and more importantly, he was a S.H.I.E.L.D. asset. Since Earth apparently thought that the correct response to finding all-powerful alien technology was to poke at it until it sent out a power surge (which was basically akin to putting an ad in the paper saying, “Lonely planet inhabited by weak humans with a tendency to bite off more than they can chew seeks warrior culture to come annihilate all living creatures and take control; must like dogs,”), S.H.I.E.L.D. was assigned the tired duty of apocalypse prevention. And, like any organization tasked with the survival of their species as a whole, they saw the potential to ally with a race of gods, actual _gods_ , and jumped on it like a dog with a bone. And all that really meant was that there was a more-or-less reliable way to communicate with Asgard at all times, even though the Tessaract was rarely implemented for anything but heavy travel. As Loki stared at the screen, he reminded himself that this was all a tactic, that he was still the one in control here. As the static faded and the figure on the screen cleared, he pulled himself up a little taller and rocked back slightly on his heels.

“Frigga,” he said with a nod.

”Hello, my son,” she answered, her smile bittersweet. Loki’s lips twitched upward.

“Well, now,” he said, “we both know that’s not entirely accurate, don’t we.”

Perhaps it was the expression she wore, somehow sad and proud and stubborn all at once, that made Loki realize how old she looked, how weary. Loki’s stomach turned with something closely resembling guilt at the sight. “Loki, no matter who birthed you, I am your mother. I raised you, taught you, cleaned you, and—as I always shall—forgave you your every mistake.”

And really, what was Loki supposed to do with that?

Loki cleared his throat, the stopped. What was he going to say? Frigga was giving him a long-familiar look, the one where she simply looked at him and he told her whatever wrongdoing he had done and trembled slightly as she swept him into a hug. He was a tad embarrassed to find that it still worked, lifetimes later and realms away, and in the back of his mind wondered if there was any power in existence that could compare to that which mothers seemed to know.

”I have…” he started, then paused. What did he have? A problem? A crisis? A massive clusterfuck beginning and ending with a man whose name may or may not rhyme with Sony Tark? “…a situation.”

Frigga raised one eyebrow in an elegant swoop, one corner of her mouth twitching upwards. “Oh? And what is this ‘situation’ that brings the mighty Loki into my humble presence?”

“Do not presume to mock me, _my lady_ ,” Loki bit out. He realized somewhere in the very back of his mind that it was not wise to lash out at those he was asking for help from, but he had tried subtlety and honeyed words, and all of his shadow work had brought him naught but frustration and failure. He was a live wire, fraying and on the verge of snapping in a shower of electric-hot sparks.

The woman on the view screen only smiled. “Oh, child, you have never been good at asking for help.”

Loki snorted. “Hardly a child.”

“You will always be my child,” Frigga replied, and how did they keep ending up here? Sometimes, in moments of exceptional weakness or inebriation (or both), Loki liked to think that he was the queen’s favorite child—or as close to a favorite as Frigga was able to have—with his quiet manners, maturity, and erudite personality a sharp contrast to his hurricane brother. Something much like acid climbed up Loki’s throat, churning in his belly and stinging at the backs of his eyes. Moving on, then.

“Tony Stark is in love with Steve Rogers,” he said. At Frigga’s arched eyebrows he continued. “Steve Rogers is in love with Tony Stark. It’s _horrible_.”

Frigga’s forehead wrinkled in a slight frown. “I am… unsure as to what your problem is. You do not have romantic feelings for either of them, correct? Then, is Tony… unhappy in this relationship? Has Steven done something?” And in that moment, Loki pretended he didn’t love her as completely now as he had when he was small and weak and basically friendless and she had swept him up with a quiet laugh the _whoosh_ of her skirts and carried him off to the library to feed him sweets until he was full and to tell him stories until his eyelids drooped. It was a losing battle, because everyone—the media, random people on the streets, even some of the Avengers—assumed that it would be Tony that messed a relationship up, with commitment issues or by cheating or by ignoring someone for his inventions. But the truth was, Tony loved the way fire loves kindling, with an all-consuming brilliance that was easy to keep alight if one paid proper attention (why did no one pay that kind of attention?).

“No, Tony couldn’t possibly be unhappy with their relationship, because they are not, in fact, _in_ a relationship. Neither of them is willing to take the first step, Tony because he has the self-esteem of a mollusk and Steve because he may or may not be under the impression Tony and I have romantic feelings for each other.” When he put it like that, it was incredibly simple for something that had been this much of a headache.

“Might I assume that Steven’s false assumptions as to your relationship with Tony are more than simple communication errors?” She took his silence as an answer. “…and might I assume that this began less innocently than either of them believe?"

"I was trying to _help_ them," Loki spat out from between gritted teeth. "I owe the Man of Iron a boon, and he shall have what his heart desires most. It just so happens that what his heart desires is most... willing. Except, apparently, when it comes to making a move." Because apparently punching a god was less terrifying than admitting affection.

"I do so hate to ask, but have you confronted them about this? You have such a terrible habit of making things far more complicated and clever than they need be, my mischievous son."

Loki barely refrained from saying something he would most likely regret later, like “Oh, like adopting a prince not only from a rival kingdom but a rival species and raising him to think he has a chance at the throne without telling him his true parentage or genus. Complicated like that? Or just I kea-instruction-manual complicated?”

“Well, then, if you could kindly give me ideas of how to simplify this, it would be much appreciated. I appear to have run out of cleverness,” and oh, wasn’t that _precisely_ how it felt some days.

“I believe, “Frigga noted, “that according to laws of narration, this is the part where I leave you to use your newly acquired wisdom and caring to solve this dilemma on your own.” The image began to fade.

“You know, I do believe you’re obligated to be actually helpful at some point!” Loki spluttered. Frigga laughed, low and joyful.

“How do you get a man to do _anything_ , my dear?” she called, the image disappearing entirely.

Loki stood alone and confused in the middle of a mostly darkened room. “With Tesseract-enhanced mind control...?” he muttered to empty air.

“Sir?” One of the many benefits of growing up in a realm where a cosmic, all-seeing power was occasionally a dinner guest was that living in a house were a virtual, all-seeing power was quite literally everywhere hardly registered.

Well. Hardly registered to anyone but Thor. But he wrote once an epic to the toaster and therefore does not, in fact, count.

“Sir, if I may, Dr. Banner is requesting your presence on in the kitchen.”

Well, now. Banner was hardly Loki’s biggest fan, what with him inducing he Hulk’s appearance in the Battle of New York. “Might I ask why, JARVIS?”

“It appears Sir is not willing to take his pain medications, and Mr. Rogers is not willing to let him leave the room until he does. Dr. Banner was hoping you might be able to convince him to take them.”

Read: “Dr. Banner was hoping you would come down and trick him into taking them, then ensuring he went to bed before he decided to try flying high.” 

“Thank you for alerting me, JARVIS,” because it never for the world’s most advanced cyber intelligence system to have you on its good side, “I’ll go down immediately.”

On the elevator down, Loki puzzled over his mothe- over the queen’s words. Rules of narration? He began going over the stories of his childhood, tales of valor and adventure. And what was the bit about convincing men? Loki certainly wasn’t the one to ask about that; his lack of skill in that area was most of the reason he’d gotten thrown into a cosmic abyss. Not a top five on his vacationing list, that was for damn sure. 

The fact that he could hear the fight before he turned into the hallway for the kitchen couldn’t possibly mean anything good. Naturally, as always, he was right. Steve Rogers was standing between Tony and the exit of the island, trapping him between three counters and a fridge. Like Tony, there was a deep frown on his face. He was holding out an plastic orange bottle. Neither was speaking. Natasha hovered over one counter, not exactly in the argument but still making it clear to Tony exactly what she’d do to him if he tried escape via counter-hopping. Loki located Dr. Banner in a corner, trying to help convince Tony to maybe take care of himself for once without pushing his stress levels. Loki crossed over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Why don’t you,” he murmured, leaning in to speak into his ear, “go and find a nice space to relax. I can handle this.” What the doctor gave him wasn’t exactly a smile, but it was close. Natasha saw him walking out, nodded at Loki, and followed.

”Now,” he said, finally focusing on the problem children, who had apparently not noticed his entrance until he started talking, “what seems to be the problem?”

“Tony,” Steve gritted out, “ _won’t take his pain medication._ ”

Tony smirked. Well, to be honest, Tony was almost always smirking. Here, he was resorting to his, I’m-right-and-you’re-blonde smirk he only ever used on Steve, and was therefore secretly known to Loki as the Smirk of Unresolved Sexual Tension. “Maybe if I, yanno, _needed_ it, then-“

“Tony, you _do_ need it, you’re in _pain_ -”

“Well, I wasn’t until you popped in-”

Steve pulled a sad face that made Loki question whether or not he was really a puppy in a former life. “I just want you to feel better, Tony. Please?”

“I don’t need to feel better, I need to go work on armor repairs, which while I could do high, probably wouldn’t end well. Not any of your business anyways, Rogers.”

“Yes, Tony, it is, I’m team leader, and-” oh, but that was the wrong thing to say. And _how_. Tony’s smirk deepened into an expression Loki knew he only has when he was truly angry, truly hurt, or, more than likely, both.

“Well, Rogers, I’m sorry I’m bringing team morale down, I know how important having the Iron Man functional is to you, I’ll just-”

Steve was doing his best impression of a baby seal that had just watched its mother get eaten by an orca (and Loki really needed to stop equating Captain America with adolescent wildlife.) “Not, that’s not what I meant, I, I just-”

And how do you get men to do what you want? By not letting them do anything else.

“Take the fucking pills, Tony.” Loki’s voice was soft, but he had been raised as a prince of Asgard, and there was no mistaking the power in his tone. Both men turned to look at him. “Take the pills, or I call Miss Potts.”

Tony’s eyes widened slightly before narrowing into a glare. Loki didn’t blame him. He made his fortune with cunning and smarts, and therefore was justifiably terrified of Tony’s CEO. He doubted any man would feel shame for fearing a woman who could balance in those heels.

“Oh, what, so now we’re all ganging up on me? Oh, great. Fine. Let’s do that. I hope the two of you are happy togeth-”

“ _Tony_ ,” and if Loki had known he could shut Tony up this quickly before, he’d… well, to be completely honest, he’d have done the exact same things because 2 a.m. coffee high Tony was _hilarious_ , “once you feel better, you can fix the suit. The pills will help you feel better. I want you to take the pills because, as your friend, dragging you from the rubble was bad enough without having to worry about whether or not you’d wind up working yourself to death.” Tony winced. “Steve wants you to take the pills because he’s in love with you.”

That set them both of. Tony, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, was saying, “Jesus wept, Loki, Steve is _not_ in love with me, how would you even think that, there’s no way he wants me like that-” at the same time as Steve spluttering out, “What? No, wait, God, Tony, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, why would you _tell him that_ , it won’t change anything I swear-”

The way they both stopped speaking at basically the same second was both amusing and impressive. Tony’s eyebrows made a run for his hairline. Steve mostly turned red and made an expression of extreme discomfort that could also be extreme constipation. Such was the versatility of Steve Rogers’ face.

“Wait. I. Then. Wait. So he wasn’t lying?” It was a shame Tony was staring at Steve, otherwise he wouldn’t be missing the grade-A bitchface Loki was throwing at him. Steve shuffled like his pants were too tight.

“Well, I mean, I didn’t mean to, it just… Look, it won’t affect anything, I swear. I’ll still treat you exactly the same, and all.” 

“And if I don’t want you to treat me exactly the same?” Tony’s voice had a slight waver under the ever-present bravado, like he was expecting the supersoldier to take it back. Steve, for his part, looked like he was really trying to not be hopeful. “What if I want you to treat me completely differently than a teammate?”

From somewhere high and to his right, Barton’s voice called out, “I told you he wanted to ride your star-spangled boner!” followed by the unmistakable thwack of two people slapping someone upside the head and a rather undignified squawk. Loki regretted hurting most of the people he had while on a power-hungry rampage. His guilt regarding Barton, however, was iffy at best. 

“Do you want to, ah, want to talk about this?” It was one of those not-incredibly-rare moments when one could plainly see that Steve Rogers was still not quite used to his new body, trying to compress himself into a much smaller form.

“To be completely honest, soldier, what I really want is for you to kiss me. And then to go see how much pressure we can put on my bed before it collapses.” Steve, somehow, turned even redder, and when he opened his mouth to say something that was probably a chastisement but could also have been a, “Yes, let’s, because Loki is ever so smart and masterminded this all because he is capable of far more cleverness than my Midgardian self” was promptly pulled into the sort of kiss that never appeared in Lifetime movies.

“You are going to regret this so much,” Tony whispered when he pulled away to catch his breath. Steve frowned and pulled him into another kiss.

Loki just smiled. He had been right, his friend was happy, and—most importantly—he hadn’t needed to call in Miss Potts. He figured there was nothing too terribly voyeuristic about watching the fruit of his labors--

Tony popped open the top button on Steve’s pants. And now there was.

Tony’s moan was almost but not entirely drowned out by the sounds of Loki and the four eavesdropping Avengers running for the nearest elevator.

And a mothafuckin’ epilogue

The next morning, Loki, Thor, Clint, Natasha, and Coulson (who Clint had apparently run straight to, partially in the interest of winning a bet and partially to see if brain bleach actually existed and if SHIELD had any) were firmly seated in the rec room, munching away at various cereals that had been picked up the night before. The kitchen was still being regarded as no man's land, regardless of JARVIS's repeated assurances that it had been fully sterilized and Natasha's skepticism that not even Tony Stark could get the all-American golden boy to round home that quickly. Tony and Steve stumbled in (well, Steve stumbled. Tony fucking _strutted_ ) and sat on the love seat, which may or may not have been purposefully left open. Tony gave the room the facial equivalent of the middle finger while Steve glanced around like he was afraid of being lynched. They were met by two raised eyebrows (Loki and Natasha), bland apathy (Coulson), the shit-eating grin to end all shit-eating grins (Clint), a small smile (Banner), and a silent aneurysm from pure joy (Thor). Steve straightened up and Tony's smirk slowly slid into something more like a smile.

Loki could blame his current contentedness on his penchant for smartass, goatee-sporting playboys, but then, that wouldn't be entirely true, and Loki had long ago decided that if there was one person he would always be honest with, it would be himself. He had managed the impossible. He had found friends. He had Thor (a dubious pleasure, but a pleasure all the same). He was marveling over his happiness when he heard the clacking sound of heels on tile and then, "Tony, I'm very happy for you and Steve, but if you don't sign these before noon, I will lock you in your workshop _and set it on fire_."

Virginia Potts swept into the room with far more grace than anyone in those heels should be legally allowed. She smiled beautifully at it's occupants. "Morning all. Loki, I don't suppose I could convince you to make sure he gets these done on time? You seem to manage to convince him of everything else." Steve, predictably, blushed and Tony, unpredictably, smiled almost sweetly. Then turned to kiss the shit out of his beau to the horrified groans of his teammates.

"I'll see what I can do, Miss Potts," Loki drawled. She smiled, leaning in and squeezing his shoulder.

"Loki, you make Tony eat. You get him out of the workshop. You made him pull his head out of his ass long enough to notice Steve. I think at this point you can call me Pepper." And with that, she swished back out.

Loki inexplicably remembered his mothers words-- "the laws of narration". He remembered all the stories he'd heard, about dragons and princesses and warriors and wolves and girls. And he remembered how they had ended-- with a "happily ever after".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you have any questions or complaints, I'm on Tumblr at occamsphaser.tumblr.com. Stop by at any time.


End file.
